What I watched this week: July 5-11

Repulsion (1965) dir. Roman Polanski:

Polanski's first English-language film may not be the director's shining moment as far as dialogue goes, but the second half of the film demonstrates brilliantly that fear is universal. Catherine Deneuve stars as a young woman left to watch her sister's apartment while she and her boyfriend go on a vacation. While on her own, she experiences increasingly disturbing dreams that take an increasingly dark turn. After a sluggish, even tedious first half or so (did the calm before the storm need to be that long?), the film really takes off as Carole's mental state begins to deteriorate. The slightly jazzy score, often clashing with the images on screen, never outstays its welcome, always cutting off right when it starts to feel overdone. Deneuve, in a role that is silent for large stretches, turns in dazzling work, emoting almost purely through her eyes as a woman quite past the verge of a nervous breakdown. Enhanced by great in-camera effects (walls are used to fantastic effect), subtle but effective art direction, and excellent cinematography. While Polanski's film could easily be dissected in trying to figure out what makes Carole snap (I'm sure more than a few writers have used her virginity as a spring board for their theses), it also works strictly as a surface-only thriller: watch a young woman's downward spiral into madness. Though it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it's certainly an unsettling film with some images that you'll have a difficult time forgetting.

Grade: B+

The Last Picture Show (1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich:

Essentially a slightly more character-specific, American predecessor to Fellini's Amarcord, Bogdanovich's film is a sparse, bleak, yet very rewarding film. As we see follow a group of soon-to-be-high-school-graduates in Arnene, Texas as they come of age, Bogdanovich (working off of Larry McMurtry's adaptation of his own novel) crafts a methodically paced, understated film that builds. It it the epitome of what "quietly moving" cinema should aspire to; it has enough to make you feel, but never indulges in any jarring moments of blatant heart string-tugging. Performance-wise, there's not a weak link in the group, although I do slightly question Ellen Burstyn's Best Supporting Actress nomination. The same cannot be said for her co-star, Cloris Leachman, who picked up a well-deserved Oscar for her performance as a conflicted, adulterous house-wife. Just when the film leads you to believe that it's done with her, the end brings Leachman back to powerful effect. Fellow winner Ben Johnson also turns in nice, understated work as the father of a somewhat mentally deficient boy. His monologue when he takes his son and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) to a nearby like is a thing of magnificent, quiet beauty, much like the film around him.

Grade: A/A-

The Red Balloon (1956) dir. Albert Lamorisse:

A small exercise in charm, Lamorisse's Oscar-winning film (which clocks in at only 34 minutes), is a winning example of how to use less to create more. The plot is simple: a balloon with a life of its own follows a young boy as he walks around Paris. And thankfully, that's all the film really does with the premise. You could speculate all you wanted to about deeper meaning, but the film seems to work best as an innocent (but not naive) fairy tale with a magnificent ending.

Grade: B